


Sky's The Limit

by WellSchitt



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: A little angst, Class Differences, Financial Issues, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 05:50:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WellSchitt/pseuds/WellSchitt
Summary: David thinks he’s happy. He’s pretty sure. It’s obviously a good thing, being rich, so why wouldn’t he be happy about it?He tries to use the walk back to Patrick’s to clear his head, but instead he keeps thinking about how he’ll probably have a driver again soon.When he gets to the apartment, he’s still not sure how he feels—but that’s ok. He’ll know after he talks to Patrick.





	Sky's The Limit

David is so overwhelmed that he almost doesn’t want to tell Patrick. He doesn’t know where to begin. His hands stopped shaking half an hour ago, but his voice might be hoarse from trying to shout over Alexis and his mother to get his facts straight.

Patrick will want facts. He’ll want numbers David can’t possibly remember right now, and a plan that David doesn’t have.

His head aches slightly. He’d like to lie down.

—

When his father texted him that morning that he had some news, David had expected some boring piece of family ephemera. Maybe his mother had booked another commercial, or the hotel was finally upgrading the bathrooms with more flattering lighting. He’d stuffed the comment box full several times over with that suggestion; it was about time they did something about it. The issue was growing into a Cold War type scenario between him and Stevie.

Even if it was about the lighting, he hadn’t wanted to go—he was stretched out in his fiancé’s bed, and they were supposed to talk about wedding colors and flowers that day. But then his dad had texted _Patrick_ asking for David, and of course Patrick had hustled him to the car almost immediately. (“Sorry, but I’ve got you locked down already—it’s time to suck up to the in-laws.”)

For the second time in David’s memory, his father’s ‘big news’ announcement had been exactly that: big fucking news, in the form of a big Interpol raid on a big mansion in Chile, where the authorities had recovered a big chunk of their fortune from one Eli Whitman, former financial manager of Rose Video.

—

David thinks he’s happy. He’s pretty sure. It’s obviously a good thing, being rich, so why wouldn’t he be happy about it?

He tries to use the walk back to Patrick’s to clear his head, but instead he keeps thinking about how he’ll probably have a driver again soon.

When he gets to the apartment, he’s still not sure how he feels—but that’s ok. He’ll know after he talks to Patrick.

—

Except Patrick is playing a fucking video game when David gets upstairs. They’d finally hired someone to work 20 hours a week at the store so they’d have a little time off together, and instead of paying attention to David, Patrick is utilizing that precious time to kill something (aliens? Russians?) on his PlayStation.

Well, their free time isn’t so precious anymore, because now they can hire as many people as they want. They’ll never _have_ to work at the store again.

The thought knocks the wind out of David, almost literally, and all of the sudden he’s on the verge of a panic attack. Which is just... _so_ stupid. So ridiculous. His bank account jumped by eight figures and he’s panicking over it, Jesus. He needs some fucking perspective.

He makes a pot of herbal tea. Halfway through the kettle boiling he has another moment of irrational terror about the store, and has to clutch the counter and take in twenty purposeful, even breaths before he can get the honey out of the cupboard.

When he sets Patrick’s mug in front of him, Patrick thanks him politely but ignores it, craning his neck to show that David’s blocking his view. Scowling, David sits on the floor by his legs and pulls his laptop towards him on the coffee table. He thinks about Patrick as he mindlessly checks his email and Instagram in a daze.

It only takes a minute, because he’d unfollowed all his New York friends years ago.

“What would you do with a million dollars?” David finally asks, aiming for casual. It’s actually a lot more than a million, but this works as a starting place.

He doesn’t have much of a track record at fooling Patrick, but the video game keeps him precisely distracted enough not to question David’s tone or behavior. _So much for hanging on every word I say_, David thinks, looking up at him with fond annoyance. Patrick’s mouth is slightly slack, his fingers working dexterously in one of the few ways David doesn’t find attractive.

“Huh? A million dollars?” Something explodes on the screen, evidently giving Patrick a moment to focus on his fiancé—the love of his damned life—who has something very important to tell him, if he’d only turn off the game and pay him some fucking attention.

“Yeah. Like, if you won the lottery, what would you buy?”

“David, is this another conversation about that sweater?”

“No, it’s-”

“Because I told you, I just don’t think we can swing $300 more for your wardrobe right now with the wedding coming up. I promise there will be some wiggle room once we pay off the new refrigeration unit.” Patrick leans into an imaginary turn; he’s driving a car in the game now.

David will likely never have to worry about supplementing his wardrobe from eBay and luxury consignment stores again, barring a second Great Depression or, worse, a second Eli. “I told you, it’s not about the sweater. I’m just curious what you’d do with a million dollars.”

“I’d pay off the refrigeration unit.”

“Patrick.” He stretches out the word to match his level of annoyance.

His fiancé sighs, eyes still glued to the screen. “I don’t know, David! I don’t exactly have a list prepared.”

In his old life, people had always seemed to have a list prepared. And David had always coughed up the money when his lovers so much as hinted at wanting tennis bracelets, trips to Rome or Kyoto, dinners at Michelin-approved sushi restaurants that served bite-sized portions of near-endangered species. And after the inevitable breakup, he never threw it back in their faces—never demanded the bracelets back, or the cost of their airline tickets—but the feeling that maybe he’d engaged in some unspoken kind of prostitution, more about affection than sex, left him feeling disgusted with himself.

God, David can’t wait to buy Patrick whatever the fuck he wants.

He opens his laptop again. “You’re being boring.”

The game is buffering or something, loading a new level, so Patrick indulges him. “Ok, ok, I’d... I guess I’d send my parents on a nice vacation. My dad has always wanted to go to Ireland.”

Smiling, David types ‘rent castle Ireland’ into google (Patrick’s dad is a history buff) and forgives Patrick, a little, for the stupid video game. “What about your mom?”

“Um. She likes cruises.” David is losing him again; he leans forward, buttons on the remote-thingy clacking fast and loud.

David types ‘luxury yacht tour Europe’ into the browser. “What about for you, though? What would _you_ want?”

Patrick glares at the screen. “David, can this wait? This kid is like fourteen and has nothing better to do than play video games twelve hours a day, so he’s seriously kicking my ass.”

David refrains from pointing out that Patrick _does_ have better things to do. He still doesn’t know how to broach the subject, anyway—maybe he’ll just buy him a Ferrari and leave it in the drive. “Three things for yourself, then I’ll let you shoot the teenager,” he persists, not sure if Patrick would even like a Ferrari—and, honestly, not completely sure what a Ferrari looks like. He’s not a car guy.

(He types Ferrari into google. They’re kind of ugly.)

“Alright, alright. I’d pull out all the stops and give you a huge, fancy wedding. Then I’d buy us a house, one big enough that you don’t complain every time I practice the accordion.”

“I don’t complain!”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s more that I’m processing, out loud, the fact that I’m marrying a man who plays the accordion.” David grins into his mug of tea.

“Well, I’m marrying someone who can’t seem to stay within a $200 a month sweater budget. The accordion isn’t hurting anybody.” Patrick catches his eyes and gives him a small smile, a sign that he’s just teasing.

But Patrick does worry about money, including David’s spending. They’re merging their finances—separate accounts wouldn’t make much sense, since they’ll be living together and they co-own the business. Until this morning, neither of them had had other assets to speak of. Patrick had a small amount of debt from grad school, but that MBA has served them both well and David had insisted that they’d jointly finish paying it off.

He’ll write a check for the whole amount tomorrow.

“Ok, that’s two things and they’re both kind of for me? So now tell me something you'd want _just_ for you.”

Patrick blows out a breath and hits a button; the screen goes to some kind of menu. “You could just tell me that you don’t want me to play right now. I know these afternoons are for wedding planning, but you were at the motel and I was trying to finish that level.”

“You didn’t have to quit playing!” David's really glad he quit playing.

“It’s fine. Stupid kid was about to blow me up again anyway. So what do you...” he trails off, eyes on the laptop screen. David had been scrolling through the search results for European yacht tours. “Uh. Honeymoon?”

“No. For your mom.”

Patrick cocks his head like a confused puppy.

God, David loves him. He turns so he’s kneeling near the coffee table facing Patrick on the couch. “They found Eli. Interpol did. So you’re- _we’re_ going to be really, really rich. Again. Well, again for me, I know you haven’t been- obviously. So you’re going to be really, really rich for the first time, and I’m going to be really, really rich again. So. Just. If you want to start looking at houses for your accordion, we can do that.”

He’s saying this wrong, like it’s bad news. It’s good news. It is. Just because he _could_ go back to his old, terrible, lonely life in New York doesn’t mean he has to—or he can, and he’ll take Patrick with him, and it won’t be terrible and lonely anymore. Except he can’t take the store to New York, and Patrick loves the store._ He_ loves the store. So they can—what, build a mansion in Schitt’s Creek? How stupid. But they could, they can do whatever Patrick wants, David just needs him to decide. He needs Patrick to stop staring at him and say something, anything, so he can start being happy about this.

“Wow. Your mom must be thrilled,” is the first thing he says. It’s a lot less helpful than David had expected.

“That’s understating it.”

“And they recovered all the money?” Patrick still doesn’t look happy. “Just, I thought it was kind of… gone. Like, didn’t he—Eli—didn’t Eli spend it?”

“Some. Not that much, as it turns out. A lot was invested under a fake name, so it kept earning interest, and, well. Eli was always really good with money.”

“I’m... wow. That’s... that’s, um. I’m really happy for you guys.” He sits back on the couch, blinking a lot, one hand covering his mouth.

David tries to ignore his tone. “So we’ll send your parents to Ireland after the wedding, maybe. It doesn’t have to be a yacht, if you don’t think your mom would-”

“David-”

“And we can buy a house, whichever house you- we can buy more than one, we can-”

“David, I’m not going to let you do that. That money belongs to your family, not to me,” Patrick says gently.

No. Incorrect.

“But we’re going to have a joint bank account,” David replies, voice small, because he wants to say ‘we’re going to be a family’ and that’s entirely too pathetic.

“Well obviously now we’ll have to rethink how we divide expenses. But I can’t- David, I can’t take your family’s money. I didn’t earn it, I... and you don’t need to send my family on vacation. Or buy us a house. I mean, _you_ can buy a house, obviously, and... and I guess for the wedding, you can go wild, now. That’s something I want for you. You liked that botanical garden, so we can do that, and the big reception at that resort-” Patrick is spiraling. It’s not something David’s seen often.

_Your_ family. _My _family. David’s lip trembles, which is ridiculous, because he has enough money to solve almost every problem he and Patrick had yesterday, and it’s objectively a great thing that’s happened to them, and he doesn’t understand why he feels so scared.

“Patrick, we can get married on a beach in Belize now. Or in Japan under the cherry blossoms. Renting a garden in Elmdale no longer qualifies as ‘going wild.’”

Blushing, Patrick kneads his forehead with his fist. “Right, David, but if we get married in Belize or Japan, no one in my family will be able to come.”

“Why no-”

“Because they can’t afford it, David!” Patrick half-shouts. David startles, and Patrick calms himself within seconds. “Sorry. Sorry, this is... I’m just... catching up. Is all. To what this means for us, our wedding, our relationship-”

“It doesn’t mean anything for our relationship,” David says, rearing back. “Why would it-”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. If you still want to marry me-”

“_If I still want to marry you?!_”

Patrick joins David on the floor in an instant, pulls him into his arms. “Calm down. I meant that rhetorically, I know you still- David! David, calm down, love. I didn’t mean it like that at all. Nothing's going to change between us. Come on, breathe for me.”

That’s when David realizes he’s hyperventilating.

They sit on the floor breathing for several minutes before he says, “The garden in Elmdale is off the list, remember?”

“We aren’t talking about that yet. I’m sorry I brought it up. We’re going to take some time to process, and we’ll talk about the wedding later, ok?”

“We do wedding planning on our day off together,” David says stubbornly.

“We can miss one day,” Patrick murmurs, petting his hair.

“You don’t like the garden. We crossed it off the list because of all the wrought iron, you thought it looked like prison bars.”

“We can put the wedding party in convict orange, turn it into a theme?” David doesn’t smile, and Patrick sighs. “David, if you’re the one paying for the wedding... honestly, all that really matters to me is that we’re married at the end of the day.”

“_No_,” David says vehemently, pulling away. “Please stop doing that. Please. I liked it better the other way. I didn’t think I did, but I did.”

“What other way?” Patrick takes his hand, negating the distance David put between them, and David lets him.

“Every boyfriend or girlfriend I’ve ever had has wanted me to pay for things. Lots of things, things they wanted, places they wanted to go, and _why_ does it matter so much to you if I pay for something? Why should that mean the garden is back on the list, when you didn’t like the wrought iron?” Things are getting jumbled in his head, and what he wants to ask is: why does Patrick have to be so fucking middle-class about this?

“David, I’m not them.” He touches David’s cheek and says it like David’s worried about that, the moron.

“That’s what I’m saying: you _aren’t_ them. You could never _be_ them. You’re going to be my husband, you’re not some fling in Lima trying to get me to charter a helicopter to Machu Picchu. And your mother says I have to call her Mom now, which still really freaks me out, by the way, but you won’t let me send her to Europe? So I have to call her Mom, but you won’t let me treat her like- and you wanted a house, but now that we have the money, we can’t buy one?”

“Look, maybe the thing with my parents... I didn’t mean you can’t do nice things for them, ok?” Patrick says. He looks calmer but still strained; David wants him to relax. Maybe they should fuck now and talk about this later. “But David, I don’t want your money. I just want you.”

“And that’s very sweet of you, but it turns out that I come with a lot of money. It’s a package deal as of this morning. And the first thing I thought about when Dad told us, was how you won’t have to worry about your student loan debt anymore, and how we can buy the building for the store instead of leasing it.” He tries to stop there, but being honest with Patrick has become a habit. “And maybe also how I can buy whatever clothes I damn well please from now on without worrying about your spreadsheet, but mostly the other things.”

Patrick rests his head on David’s shoulder. “I can understand that. If I... I don’t know, if I won the lottery today, the first thing I’d probably do is buy you that stupid sweater.”

The sweater is _not_ stupid, but David lets it go. “You basically did win the lottery today.”

“David...”

“We said before that we wanted to share everything. We made a decision not to keep our finances separate, and I don’t like that you’re taking that back. Like, if I get box seats at some field, are you going to make me go watch baseball by myself?”

“Ok, you’re bringing me around,” Patrick says, smiling softly at him. “Can I just have some time with this? It's all very... unexpected. And it's a lot.”

“I guess.” David clenches his jaw. He’d wanted Patrick to be happy about this now, not later.

Patrick, of course, laughs at him. “In the meantime… you could start looking at tuxes.”

Narrowing his eyes, David looks at him cautiously. The cost of their tuxedos has been a major sticking point in their wedding budget.

“Sky's the limit,” Patrick says, eyes still soft, and David grins and grabs his laptop.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is random as hell, but I have multiple ficlets (posted and unposted) centering around David and Patrick's class differences. I'm fascinated by it because my wife's family is significantly wealthier than mine, and boy howdy are there some major cultural differences that come with that. There's also a power imbalance that is tough to navigate when someone offers to pay for things like a honeymoon, or a whole fucking nanny, like it's nothing.
> 
> Also: I kind of hope the Rose family gets their fortune back somehow in season six. I think it would be such a cool way to explore how much (or how little) they've really changed. Doubt it'll happen, but it would be interesting.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at well-schitt.tumblr.com <3


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